Hello... I hope someone can help me with this incredibly irritating problem: Vista loses the ability to connect to my network drives on my home network. I've googled & googled till my googler is sore and find that there are a LOT of people who have the same problem, but not one of the suggested solutions works for me.

When I first boot up my Dell Inspiron 530 desktop (Vista SP2) and open the "Computer" folder, I can access several USB drives that are attached to a Sony laptop running XP. I use those drives as backups for my Dell files. At some point during the day, I open the Computer folder, click on one of the USB drive icons, and I get the error dialog box "An error occurred while reconnecting K: to \\SONY1\Maxtor120 Microsoft Windows Network: The network path was not found. This connection has not been restored." The only way I can get it to work again is to restart my Dell. Then, the USB drives are accessible again... for a while.

I recently noticed that my new Brother MFC-6490CW Wireless Printer occasionally stopped printing and when I'd check its status, it said "Offline". I also have a security dongle for some embroidery software and found that it exhibits a similar problem. When I'd check their status in Task Manager, their services showed that they were running (which was really confusing to me).

After more Googling, I determined that if I manually stop the dongle service (hasplms) and manually start it, the dongle works fine. I then thought maybe the printer might have a similar solution, so I manually stopped the Spooler service and restarted it. Bingo. The printer status then shows as Ready and it prints fine. So...I set up two batch files, one to fix the printer Spooler service issue, and one to fix the dongle driver issue (with NET STOP and NET START commands).

I kind of patted myself on the back for figuring out those two items, since I'm not a techie. The "Vista can't reconnect to my network drives" problem kind of seems related... I'm wondering if there's a NET STOP/NET START command that I could use to fix Vista's problem of forgetting that it ever knew I had network drives. I don't know if there's ONE service that's involved, or several.

Have you been to Dell support, drivers and downloads and updated chipset and especially network adapter drivers to the latest if available? I see there's one network driver labeled as Urgent (usually means the original one is busted) for the PCI-E type.

Also, even though its a desktop the adapter still has a power management setting that you can access through the device manager>network adapters>double click on the adapter>power management tab. Its probably turned on, if so, uncheck it so there's no chance for the computer to turn it off.

OK... I finally got all the Vista updates (SP2, etc). The machine has not been in hibernation nor sleep mode. I already had turned off the power management a long time ago.

Vista is still 'forgetting' that I had a network drive about 30 minutes ago (right after a reboot).

The only thing I haven't done yet is what Byron Tarbox mentioned: "Have you been to Dell support, drivers and downloads and updated chipset and especially network adapter drivers to the latest if available? I see there's one network driver labeled as Urgent (usually means the original one is busted) for the PCI-E type."

Every time I've gone to the Dell website to look for updated drivers, it has been so confusing to me which one (if any!) I might need to download. I'm SO reluctant to contact Dell Support because I usually get someone I can barely understand, and often, their suggestion is to reload Windows or something equally as silly. (I guess you can say that I don't have a lot of confidence that Dell Support will actually help... I have been burned before.)

I've been to the Dell site. Two drivers were suggested - upon installation, one said "can't find network card", and the next said "the driver you have is more current".

I've done even more googling and find that this issue is 'WAYYYY bigger than little ol' me. Many, Many people are complaining -- even the new Windows 7 people. I've read replies from people who are listed as knowlegeable with stuff like this, and yet even they don't seem to come up with a solution. Even searching the Microsoft knowledge base doesn't help.

Rebooting reconnects the drives temporarily, so I guess I'll just do that when I need to back up my files to the network drives (the 2 Maxtor HDs attached to the Sony laptop). I was SO hoping there was a way to force Vista to rediscover those drives without having to reboot -- rebooting takes so long.

Maybe getting a new router will help. Maybe not. Maybe I'll just relocate and attach those 2 Maxtor HDs to my Dell Desktop. I'm just SO exhausted with digging and digging on this problem and coming up with nothing.

THANK YOU ALL for your suggestions and advice. It is VERY much appreciated.

Rebooting reconnects the drives temporarily, so I guess I'll just do that when I need to back up my files to the network drives (the 2 Maxtor HDs attached to the Sony laptop). I was SO hoping there was a way to force Vista to rediscover those drives without having to reboot -- rebooting takes so long.

See the Vista client side sections at Vista drops network drives. If you keep the drives from being disconnected in the first place that mey be better.

See the Vista client side sections at Vista drops network drives. If you keep the drives from being disconnected in the first place that mey be better.

Joe

Joe... thank you very much for this link. I've saved & printed the info in case I need it soon.

Last night,after I posted my "I give up" message (I *hate* giving up!) I went into Services and changed the "SSDD Discovery" Service startup type to 'automatic' (I wish I could remember what it was before I changed it, but I suffer from CRS). Since then, I've been checking occasionally to see if the drives are still available and so far, they have been.

I'm still a bit skeptical that this will continue to work... If it's really that easy, I should have found the solution from all my research a long time ago.

I sure hope you don't have to give up on it all. I too have had so many problems, in my case, with HP and network interfaces related to Vista and subsequently Windows 7 but have been able to solve them by going to Windows 7 and there has always been a NIC update in the optional hardware updates in Windows Update that has solved the problem, so you might look there as well, though no gaurantees with Vista.

Alternatively, if the registry changes don't help and if you have a pci slot or 1x pci-e available, a good NIC card is cheap and if its a 10/100 you can upgrade to a 10/100/1000 at the same time. I did that on a system where the onboard NIC was non-functional and it was the best $12 I ever spent for what is a perfectly operating system now.

Just wanted to finish up this thread with the latest info that I have.

Dell support helped me download and install the latest BIOS, chipset (something or other), Video and Ethernet drivers. I must say that it was a delightful experience -- the best support interaction I've had in a very long time. Anyway, I *thought* the issue with network drives being 'forgotten' had been solved. They stayed available for several days. Then...SSDD...they again became 'lost'.

The last thing I've done is to use the command "net config server /autodisconnect:-1" on the XP laptop which has the 2 USB drives that my Vista desktop forgets about. I created a batch file that I run every time I restart the laptop...don't know if the NET CONFIG command "sticks" once it has been invoked (?), but in case it doesn't, I have been running it manually after a restart.

So far, so good. But...I'm not holding out a lot of hope that this is THE solution.